My grandpa used to tell me stories that his grandpa had told him. He served for three years in the Confederate army, but my grandpa said that his grandpa rarely talked about the war. Most of his stories dealt with the years immediately after the war, and the "tit for tat" violence between families who had been on opposite sides during the war. When we went squirrel hunting, he'd point out old homesites which had been burned down during those squabbles. They were never rebuilt, since most of the Unionist families eventually moved away. I don't know much of what he told me was embellished, but I sure saw a lot of collapsed stone chimneys in among those hills.

By the way, Harold, I'm having trouble laying my hands on that 1864 correspondence from Colonel Witt. It's not filed where I thought it was. I'm not sure this rat's nest of papers really deserves to be called "my files," but I'll keep poking around in it, and I'll post it when I find it.